From 'Tongues Untied' to 'Black Is.....Black Ain't,' Marlon Riggs' art was a series of radical acts that were both overdue and ahead of their time.
Two decades ago, in post-Reagan America, the arts were under fire—one lit by a very particular religious right match. Feeling the heat was the National Endowment for the Arts, a then 25-year-old institution already pretty pitifully funded by comparison with most other developed nations’ governmental arts support. But the small portion of NEA grants that helped avant-garde or otherwise edgy art—as opposed to, say, the local Gilbert & Sullivan society or annual craft fair—provided plenty of opportunities...

From 'Tongues Untied' to 'Black Is.....Black Ain't,' Marlon Riggs' art was a series of radical acts that were both overdue and ahead of their time.
Two decades ago, in post-Reagan America, the arts were under fire—one lit by a very particular religious right match. Feeling the heat was the National Endowment for the Arts, a then 25-year-old institution already pretty pitifully funded by comparison with most other developed nations’ governmental arts support. But the small portion of NEA grants that helped avant-garde or otherwise edgy art—as opposed to, say, the local Gilbert & Sullivan society or annual craft fair—provided plenty of opportunities...